Editorial: Obama rightly links secure Israel to absence of war'

President Barack Obama is greeted by children waving Israeli and American flags as he arrives at the residence of Israeli President Shimon Peres, Wednesday, March 20, 2013, in Jerusalem. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Monday at sundown the eight-day Jewish holiday of Passover began. But many Jews were reminded of the importance of the holiday that essentially gave birth to their people when President Obama visited Israel last week.

Obama did not make his first visit as president to the Jewish state to participate in peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, but rather to help rekindle them.

He was also there to assure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the United States would work to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and becoming a threat to Israel and the rest of the world.

Obama did not promise that the United States would act militarily against Iran if Israel decided that must be done, but did endorse whatever unilateral measures Israel deems necessary to guard against a nuclear threat from Iran.

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The president is wise not to commit the sacrifice of American lives and money for yet another war on foreign soil. The United States is still recovering from the war in Iraq that George W. Bush declared 10 years ago on the premise of finding weapons of mass destruction. Such weapons were never uncovered, but 4,486 American lives were lost before the last troops left at the end of 2011, and the U.S. was plunged into the worst economic recession since the Great Depression. United States troops are still in Afghanistan where 2,191 American lives have been lost since 2001. Thousands of Americans have been injured in both wars.

During his visit to Israel, Obama stressed the importance of diplomatic talks not only between Israel and Iran, but between Israel and Palestine.

The standoff between Israelis and Palestinians over the Gaza Strip on Israel’s western border has existed since 1948 when Israel was first established as the Jewish homeland. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon offered an olive branch in 2005 with the evacuation of 8,500 Jewish settlers from 21 Gaza settlements on territory claimed by Palestinians.

However, the militant Islamic Hamas movement took over the Gaza Strip in 2007 leaving only the West Bank to be governed by the Palestinian Authority.

Last week Obama visited with young Palestinians on the West Bank as well as with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

“Palestinians deserve a future of hope. Palestinians deserve a state of their own,” Obama said during a news conference with Abbas last Thursday.

Palestinians maintain they can never reach a peace accord with Israel while they are cut off from Jerusalem and while Jewish construction continues to occur on land they claim as theirs.

These concerns were conveyed by Obama to an audience of Israeli university students after his visit to the West Bank. He also told them peace with Palestine will never occur until distinct borders are drawn between the two states, and that peace with Palestine is essential for the security of Israel, especially considering the revolutions occurring in neighboring Arab nations.

He also stressed that “given the march of technology, the only way to truly protect the Israeli people is through the absence of war.”

Indeed, that philosophy could be applied internationally. As nations all over the world have growing access to the devastating technology of destruction, the only real avenue to survival for any nation will be the avoidance of war.